Chaos and the World Cup

When you saw Marouane Fellaini’s big afro lumbering up on the sidelines in Belgium’s match against Japan, you had the feeling that this World Cup wasn’t quite going according to plan. Japan was leading by two well-struck goals against a Belgium side that came into the tournaments as one of the favorites. Two goals against Belgium in the last 16 and it seemed that one of the finest National squads were going the same route as former champions Spain, Argentina, and Germany.

And Belgium coach, Roberto Martinez decided to call upon Fellaini to pull off the rescue act. There was collective hand on face emojis on quite a few football WhatsApp groups on my phone. Especially amongst the Manchester United fans who just recently had to deal with knowing that the big Belgian signed a new two year deal with the club. No disrespect to Fellaini, but he’s not quite the first player you’d want when your team needs three goals to pull through.

Of course, the match didn’t go according to script, of course, Belgium managed to beat Japan by scoring three goals in 30 minutes, and of course, big, lumbering, ungainly Fellaini was amongst the goal scorers.

But then this World Cup isn’t so much about teams playing according to fan predictions or players living up to set expectations, this World Cup is pure chaos. If Paul the Octopus, God bless him, was alive, he’d probably have an aneurysm after the round of 16.

Everywhere you look at this World Cup, there are oddities all over. Germany out in the first round, Russia knocked out Spain (after Spain passed everyone and their dog to sleep), and English fans still singing ‘It’s coming home’. I mean come on, we’ve reached the semi-finals and those English fans are still singing in Russia.

This is a tournament where England are looking like potential champions and Messi and Ronaldo are watching the games on television at home. We’ve got to the semi’s and we have Croatia and Belgium, who’ve never won the World Cup and England and France, who’ve each won the Cup just once.

For the neutral, this is probably one of the most exciting World Cups in recent years, with every single team, except for Panama, putting up a fight against the established powers. For the seasoned fan, however, with bets stacked on his / her favorite team, expect more chaos to reign.